Vacation in Missouri (and Paris and Britain)

I have not posted in a week, as my family was visiting Lake of the Ozarks for a much needed period of fun-in-the-sun. My son is shown at left with one of the bass he caught & released (too small to become a meal).

During this time I have complete the fifth novel in the Aimee Leduc series that I last blogged about (What I’m Reading). My brain then went to Great Britain in the 1920’s with The Language of Bees by Laurie King. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mary Russell series, these sequels to the Sherlock Holmes series match the great detective with a brilliant younger woman who is in every way a match for his brilliance. I am now about half-way through another novel by David Liss, The Devil’s Company. This novel reprises Benjamin Weaver, a Jewish pugilist in England in the 1700’s who becomes a thieftaker, the equivalent of a private detective. This book seems quite timely since the hero finds himself blackmailed into infiltrating the East India Company. The Company is facing a new law that will make wearing their imported inexpensive Indian fabrics illegal in an effort to support local wool and silk industries. While set in the distant past, the debate seems so timely. Some things just never change.

My blog break must end now so that more catch-up work can be pursued. No vacation goes unpunished…